by Roland Smith
If she were able to.
I had seen the word dread a thousand times, but until that moment, I had no idea what it really meant. It felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. For a moment I couldn’t move. I thought I might puke.
Breathe.
I was no good to anyone if I was scared out of my mind.
Move.
I was in Aki’s cave. Blue P. His rope was still fixed to the anchor at the entrance. I tested it by jerking on it as hard as I could. It was solid. I snapped it into my harness, leaned back, and stepped into the black void, taking short hops, five or six feet at a time, making sure of my footing before pushing off again. I reached a second fixed rope in less than five minutes. I wasn’t sure if Zopa had set the anchor. I tested it before hooking on, which got me thinking about why the ropes were still there. You don’t leave hundreds of dollars’ worth of rope hanging on a wall, even if you didn’t pay for the rope. When I got to the bottom of the cliff, I hoped that Mom and the others would run up to me and ask where I’d been. But no one came out of the dark. The base of the cliff was as empty as the caves. To mask my disappointment and fear, I retrieved the ropes and tied as many of them to my pack as I could. That done, it was time to look around and see if I could figure out what had happened to everyone.
I started where I had last seen Mom, orienting myself by the bright blinking P-E-C-E above. It was easy to find, because smashed on the rocks in thousands of pieces were what looked like every two-way, cell, and sat phone. I stared down at the broken plastic.
Someone is coming our way, Zopa had said. It looked like they had arrived. Nobody in our group would have smashed the phones and radios.
I walked over to the spring. I wish I hadn’t.
Ebadullah and Elham are lying next to the cool water.
Their throats are slit.
The fronts of their kurtas are covered in dried blood.
Their beards are caked in gore.
Their eyes are open in surprise.
Their rifles are gone.
Their prayer rugs are unrolled.
They were murdered during isha.
The only dead people I had ever seen were on Everest. They were frozen. They didn’t look real. They looked like marble statues. Ebadullah and Elham look like dead people. I turned away, stifled a gag reflex, and sat down on the cool ground. Actually, I collapsed. My legs wouldn’t hold me. I barely knew Elham and Ebadullah, but no one deserved to be brutally murdered while praying.
What if others had been murdered? Mom. Zopa. Alessia . . .
This got me back on my feet. I began to search.
The backpacks had been ransacked, the contents strewn all over the ground, but the packs were gone. The only things that seemed to be missing were the food, headlamps, stoves, a few ropes, and the film crew’s cameras and recording equipment. Everything else was left behind.
I searched the area around the spring. No more bodies. The others had been taken. I’d slept through an abduction. Now what?
I looked up at the cliff. P-E-C-E flashed over and over again. It could probably be seen for miles.
Mistake. What was I thinking? That everyone just wandered off and left me alone? If our group could see the flashing letters, the kidnappers could see the letters. They might be headed back to the cliff right now.
I scanned the dark scree for lights. No one could traverse the loose rocks without headlamps or flashlights. It was difficult enough during the day. I didn’t see any lights, and was thinking that I was probably safe, when I heard a sound behind me that nearly put me on the ground again. A scream. It wasn’t human. I whipped around and came face-to-face with a wet pair of camel lips, bad breath and all, which did put me back on the ground again—not the breath, unpleasant as it was, but the bellowing face in the dark. It wasn’t being aggressive. I think it was happy to see me. The donkey trotted up behind the camel and started braying.
“Stop!”
To my shock, they both stopped.
“That’s better.”
I got to my feet and readjusted my pack. The camel still had its halter and lead on. There was a broken branch tied to the end of the lead. I untied the branch.
“You’re free now.”
The camel just stood there looking at me.
“Oh, I get it. You want the halter off so it doesn’t get tangled.”
I’d never taken a halter off an animal, or put one on for that matter, but I’d been working with rope my entire life. How hard could it be? I reached up to unbuckle the contraption, trying to stay clear of the camel drool, then hesitated. The camel seemed pretty calm, docile, cooperative. Somewhere there was a saddle. I might be able to use the camel to haul . . .
There was another sound, and it wasn’t the camel or the donkey. It had come from the base of the cliff. I held my breath and listened, and heard nothing.
Just my imagination. I’m just a little freaked—
The sound came again. A moan. I forgot all about the camel and headed toward the cliff. It took me several minutes, and several more moans, to find the source. And I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
“Hey, mate,” Rafe said weakly, blinking up at my headlamp.
“What happened?”
“I need water.”
He needed more than that. He needed a doctor. There was a four-inch gash on his forehead, his nose was broken, his left ear was torn, his upper lip looked like he had bitten through it, and these were just the injuries I could see. He was lying in some bushes about a hundred feet from where they rappelled down from the caves.
I dribbled a little water into his wrecked mouth, then asked him again what had happened.
He ignored the question.
“How do I look?” he asked, reaching for his forehead. I stopped his hand before he messed with the scab and started bleeding again.
“You look fine,” I lied. “Where is everyone?”
He didn’t answer right away. I thought he was going to pass out, but instead he took a deep breath and whispered, “Kidnapped.”
“By who?”
“Five or six guys. Afghans. Guns and knives. I think two of them were our so-called guards, Ebadullah and Elham.”
“Ebadullah and Elham are—”
“More water.”
“Sure.”
I decided not to tell him about the throat slitting. Plenty of time to let him know about that later. It took almost a half an hour and several more doses of water before I got the whole story out of him, or at least what he knew of the story.
He and the others were in their tents, the letters all set, waiting for sundown, when they got a call on their two-ways from a voice they didn’t recognize, saying they would kill Mom, Phillip, Zopa, and the film crew if they weren’t on the ground with their packs in three minutes. Rafe looked out from his cave and saw the captives on their knees at the base of the cliff, hands tied, knives to their throats.
“We didn’t have a choice. If we hadn’t rappelled down, they would have killed them. Water.”
I gave him another sip of water. “Why didn’t they take you?”
Rafe looked away. “I fell. Bad rope.”
Bad rigging was more like it.
“I fell thirty feet,” he continued. “I hit the scree.”
It looked like he had scraped the cliff face as well.
“Is anything broken?”
He shook his bashed-up head. “I was a bit out of it after I hit the ground. One of them came over to me. I thought he was going to shoot me.”
More likely slit his throat.
“But he just left you,” I said.
“I guess. I can’t remember exactly. He seemed in a hurry to get out of there.”
“Were the men on foot?”
“I think so.”
“Did you hear a vehicle or a helicopter?”
“Nothing like that. They tied everyone up, then took off across the scree on foot. I tried to follow them, but only made it this far. I must have pass
ed out.”
He wasn’t far from where he did his header. He was banged up pretty badly. I suspected that he crawled over to the bushes to hide himself in case they came back, then passed out. I didn’t blame him. In his condition, I might have tried to hide myself too. He was in no shape to pursue a bunch of guys with guns and bloody knives. Neither was I, but that was exactly what I was going to try to do after I figured out what to do with Rafe.
“Can you sit up?” I needed to figure out the extent of his injuries.
“I dunno, mate.”
“Let’s give it a try.”
I took his hands and pulled him slowly up. He reached for his forehead again. I stopped him.
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Because you have a gash on your forehead, and I don’t want you to open it up again. I think you’ve lost a lot of blood. It would be best to keep what you have left inside your body.”
“What’s it look like?” he asked.
“It’s not bad,” I lied again. The truth was, it looked hideous, as did his ear, lip, and nose. “But you have to be careful with head injuries. I’m going to clean the scrape up and bandage it.”
“You called it a gash before,” Rafe said.
At least his mental facilities were working.
“I meant scrape.” I needed to get him off this subject and cover the gash so he didn’t make it any worse than it already was. “The only thing I’m worried about is concussion and broken bones,” I said. “But like you said, there don’t appear to be any broken bones, and you’re not slurring your—”
“My lip feels swollen.”
“A little.” His upper lip was bigger than the camel’s upper lip.
“And my ear. It hurts.”
“Just a nick.” Actually the earlobe was missing.
I took off my pack and found the first aid kit, which was going to have to be resupplied after I finished with Rafe.
“Do you have a mirror in there, mate?”
I did have the mirror I had used to look at my eagle wounds, but I wasn’t about to give it to Rafe. “Afraid not. Sorry.”
It took me twenty minutes to disinfect and bandage him. When I finished, he looked like the mummy from down under, although there wasn’t much I could do for his tooth-pierced lip and missing earlobe.
“That does it. Let’s see how you do on your feet.”
“What for, mate?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m perfectly comfortable right where I am. All I need is a sleeping bag to lie on. I need to get some shuteye. Plenty of time to try my legs out tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not waiting until daylight to go after them,” I said.
“What do you mean, after them?”
Maybe his brain was more scrambled than I thought. “My mom has been kidnapped,” I said slowly. “And our friends. We need to do something.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head.
“They had guns and knives. Ebadullah and Elham must have planned the whole thing from the beginning. There’s nothing we can do. They’re long gone.”
“Elham and Ebadullah are dead,” I told him. “They’re lying next to the spring with their throats slit. They were murdered while they were praying.”
It must have taken a moment for this to sink in, because he didn’t say anything for a long time.
“All the more reason not to go after them,” he finally said. “The men who took your mom and the others are serious bushrangers. If I wasn’t banged up, I might consider it, but . . .”
I walked away while he was still talking, mostly because he was making some good points, and I didn’t want to hear them. But his excuse that he was in bad shape was bogus. He wouldn’t have gone after them under any circumstances.
It took me a while to cool down. I spent the time sorting through the discarded gear for anything useful. Except for the rope, there was nothing I needed. I walked over to the spring. I wasn’t looking forward to what I needed to do there, which was to search Elham and Ebadullah for weapons and phones. It was an unpleasant job, and it yielded zero. When I finished, I covered them with their prayer rugs. Except for leaving Rafe behind, the kidnappers had been thorough. But why hadn’t they slit Rafe’s throat? Don’t get me wrong, I was glad they hadn’t, but why leave a witness? I was going to walk back to where I left him and ask him what he thought about the witness thing, but I didn’t have to. He was standing next to the spring watching me.
His skin had gone as pale as the bandage around his head.
“Not a pretty sight,” I said.
“What were you doing to them?”
“Seeing if they had any weapons.” I rinsed my hands off in the spring.
“And?”
“Nothing.” I stood. “Do you remember anything else about the kidnappers?”
He turned away from the bodies. “Not really. I mean, they were dressed like Elham and Ebadullah. Afghans. That’s why I thought Ebadullah and Elham were involved.”
“After your fall, how long were you out?”
“I don’t know. It could have been two minutes or two hours. What difference does it make?”
“Just trying to get an idea of what happened. What did the man squatting over you look like?”
“I already told you. He was an Afghan. A local. Probably Taliban. What are you trying to get at, mate?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’m just trying to get a clearer picture.”
“Where were you?” Rafe asked. “Why didn’t you rappel down?”
I’d been waiting for this. “I was asleep. My radio was off.”
Rafe laughed, then shrieked in pain. “Ouch!”
Served him right.
“You slept through a kidnapping?” he said. “Oh, that’s rich, mate.” He started laughing again, this time ignoring the pain.
I hoped his lip started bleeding again. It didn’t. I could just imagine him telling everyone he knew how Peak Marcello slept through an abduction.
“Are you done?” I asked.
Rafe stopped laughing, but he was still smiling. At least I think he was smiling. It was hard to tell with his deformed lip. I was tempted to give him my mirror, which would certainly have made the smile go away.
“They didn’t know how many climbers were here,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Rafe asked.
“I didn’t have my tent set up. I don’t think they knew I was there.”
“Or they knew you were there, and you could have gotten your mum killed by sleeping through the entire thing.”
That was one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it was that they weren’t as organized as I had thought. They had no doubt been watching us, but not closely, or they would have known they were missing a climber. Or else it was a targeted kidnapping, meaning they were only interested in one of us, which had to be Alessia, because she was the French ambassador’s daughter. This would explain why they didn’t kill Rafe when they realized that his injuries would slow them down. I explained my theories to Rafe. When I finished, he offered a theory of his own.
“Plank,” he said.
“What?”
“Richest bloke in the world. His climb. His climbers. Ransom. And he’ll pay it. He’ll have no choice. So there’s no point in us running after them. When they get paid, they’ll let everybody go. They let me go. Tomorrow we’ll head back to the river and wait this out. As long as we don’t muck things up, everyone will be perfectly safe.”
I turned and shined my headlamp on Elham and Ebadullah. “Not them.”
“Collateral damage, mate. They weren’t about to take two professional security people with them on a walkabout. Too risky.”
“You say the guy squatting over you was Afghan?”
“That’s right.”
“What did he look like?”
“No idea. He was wearing something over his face. So were the guys standing at the base of the cliff, for obviou
s reasons. They don’t want anyone to ID them after they get their scratch from Plank.”
I’d gotten about as much as I was going to get out of Rafe.
“I’m not waiting for tomorrow morning,” I said. “I’m heading out now.”
“Heading out where?”
I thought back to when Zopa was telling me how to track people across the loose scree, which seemed ridiculous at the time. He obviously didn’t know about the abduction then, or he wouldn’t have let it happen, but he must have had a premonition that tracking would be important.
“Well?” Rafe said.
“I’m going to try to find them,” I said. “You’re welcome to head back to the river tomorrow.”
“So you’re going to leave an injured climber behind?” Rafe said.
“No. I’m just telling you I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I’m leaving now. We should be able to get to the river by first light. I’ll leave you there, then continue looking.”
“I’m in no condition to stumble over the scree in the dark.”
He was probably right, although he hadn’t seemed to have any problem finding me in the dark by the spring without a headlamp.
“Where’s your headlamp?” I asked.
“Don’t know. It must have fallen off when I fell.”
“And where’s your pack?”
“At the base of the cliff, I guess.”
“They asked you to bring your packs?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“No reason.” Although it was another piece of the puzzle, which he hadn’t mentioned before. “If you want to come with me, let’s get your pack and go.”
“I already told you I can’t make it across the scree in the dark. And going after armed kidnappers is mad. They’ll kill you.”
It was mad, but if I got caught, I doubted they’d kill me. They hadn’t killed Rafe. I would rather have been with Mom and the others than camped at the river worrying about them.
“I’ll take you back to base camp,” I said. “But we’re going now. What you do when you get to the river is up to you. Have you ever ridden a camel?”
“Now what are you talking about?”